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US Political Thought (A Brief History of Ambivalence)

Every nation has their own political view itself and for this time I want to discover a little bit about United States based on it’s history. According to Walter Russel Mead (2002) we can see that there’s a big different political thought from time to time and administration to another administration.

Hamiltonian is more like mercantilist and close to being realist in their approach to power meaning.

Jeffersonian is prefer to share the common view that the US is a “city upon the hill” it’s mean that they are promoting the US value by commercial intercourse.

Jacksonian is more apt to seek an avoid involvement in the world affair.

Wilsonian see that US values such us democracy & the rule of law are universally applicable & seek actively to promote them in the world.

In a row of time, US grown up as a powerful nation among the world and we can see it as a result of political thought development of Wilson administration. From here, we can bifurcate this Wilsonian thought become two parts (Max Boot, 2002):

Soft Wilsonian or multilateralist who promote US values via international institutions, involve adapting the interest of others & making commitments that restrain the US as well as its allies.

Hard Wilsonian or unilateralist who promote the same values, but are less convinced by need to form alliances.

If we closely watch the US political thought and see deeper the US constitutions and its values, some weird things will appear. This is only an ambivalence but still, it confused me actually what US really is. The values are:

1. Internationalist and isolationalist moods.

2. Unilateralism and multilateralism.

3. Morality and realism

Powerful nation like US perhaps has more complex political though in the administration and policy making process. US supposed to be a great nation with no gap to criticize. But still, there is a gap or perhaps more gaps to criticize US for policy making process or political though.